Spotlight on Bristol’s booming food scene

Bristol’s food scene is vocally booming on the restaurateur front, but quietly gaining on the food production side too. Perhaps to be expected as the heart of a traditional farming region, the city hosts major players as well as cottage producers. 

Major producers

Kerry Foods and Kerry Ingredients sit in the megalithic warehouses alongside the cycle path in Avonmouth, the English outpost of an Irish food giant that produces food flavours, ready meals, sausages, drinks and dairy products including Cheesestrings. In 2015 the company made over €6 billion. 

Yeo Valley and Marshfield Ice Cream are two major local producers looming in Bristol’s fringes. Based just South of the city in Blagdon, Yeo Valley reported sales of £275m in year end 2014 thanks to the popularity of its organic yoghurts.

The cows out enjoying the sunshine this afternoon… pic.twitter.com/Pex1ZZuICo

— Yeo Valley (@yeovalley) August 16, 2016

Established in 1993, the company now produces over 2,000 tonnes of yoghurt, butter, milk and ice cream each week. 

Marshfield Ice Cream began in 1988 as a diversification opportunity for a dairy farming family.

Having a BBQ tonight? making the most of this #heatwave how about this quick ice cream dessert #etonmess #icecream pic.twitter.com/gxUTzFWXXS

— Marshfield Ice Cream (@MarshfieldIces) August 23, 2016

Today the company employs more than 20 people and can produce 2,500 litres of ice cream every hour when running at full capacity. The popular flavours are sold in over 3,500 outlets, all produced on the 1,000-acre organic farm between Bristol and Bath. 

Medium-scale producers

And there are a number of companies that have successfully grown to a similar scale.

Cakesmiths started life from a successful coffee shop. Tom Batlle opened a café in 2001 after 10 years in the bar industry and was soon joined by his sister Georgina as chief baker.

I’m liking the post this morning! #Cakesmiths #AwardWinning #cake https://t.co/KX0IjilMM5 pic.twitter.com/XcAoZkDD3P

— Cakesmiths (@CakesmithsHQ) August 30, 2016

Word soon spread about her delicious cakes and the coffee shop wrapped up to make way for a dedicated cake business that now supplies cakes to cafés across the city and country. 

Pieminister is one of Bristol’s homegrown success stories, thanks in part to a high-quality, ethical philosophy. At its peak the company makes 100,000 pies a week in its Brentry factory, using products sourced from a local supplier and farmer base. Their success and chain of restaurants will see it turn over nearly £13 million this year.

But “there are gaps in the market for food producers,” says co-founder Jon Simon; “Innovation is the key. We did ten years ago. There’s always opportunity.”

Longer established, Clifton’s Stute Foods employs a team of seven in its business supplying major supermarkets with fruit juices, drinks, jams, spreads and waffles that it manufactures in its German factory. Since 1969, it’s been a proudly Bristolian a firm family business – the third generation having recently joined – turning over £4 million a year.

Ingredients

The industry is making ingredients as much as food products.

Plant-Ex makes natural colours, flavours, extracts and food preservatives from its factory in Avonmouth where it employs 20 people. Though it exports across the world, the company has a significant and growing presence in Europe which has grown further since Brexit.

Protein shake formulating today in the applications lab. We can offer complete recipe; colour, flavour, colloids etc pic.twitter.com/l6DPYcDl6h

— Plant-ex Ingredients (@plantexing) August 17, 2016

“Q1 was our best quarter ever,” says managing director Giles Drewett; “year-on-year a 40 per cent increase”.

Business continues to expand. It’s opened an office in Spain, invested £500,00 in new machinery at the Avonmouth plant and is currently putting a factory up in Turkey to sell into the Gulf region where natural products are growing in popularity, particularly British products which are “seen as high quality”. 

Known for the peppery aroma that drifts out over York Road from its Totterdown factory, Bart Spices is a long-term fixture in the food scene having been on that site since 1970.

In the year to March 2015 it posted a turnover of over £18 million following the acquisition of OTP Foods in 2014, expanded product ranges and the development of existing brands. The company now supplies herbs and spices alongside Thai, Indian and home baking ingredients and says that sales growth is in double-figures. 

Feeder Road is home to one innovator, The Spicery, which roasts, grinds and blends spice mixes to send to customers around the country, a 20-person mail order business that now supplies major restaurants including the Fat Duck, Ottolenghi and Rick Stein.

“We love how many food businesses are based in Bristol, and how open Bristol is to food from around the world,” says founder James Ransome who came up with the idea in 2005 while standing in a Moroccan market. 

Growers

Grow Bristol sells shoots and microgreens to restaurants and customers as well as educating people in healthy food choices and providing opportunities for people to learn skills and get jobs. 

“Our urban farm is on Feeder Road on an old industrial site,” says co-founder Dermot O’Regan. “We’re a social enterprise which means we want to run a business that is profitable but also with specific environmental and social outcomes.”

Trading for about 3 months so far it’s still in pilot stage, but “it’s providing a model for an urban farm that could provide 3-400 kg of leaves per week into the local market, and that would only represent a small percentage of the leafy greens people eat in the city, a large amount of which is imported. There’s a lot of room for growing more locally.” The ultimate goal is to expand the urban farm to produce even more produce, with recycling and minimal food miles at the heart of the philosophy. 

The Severn Project was founded by Steve Glover with a start-up budget of £2,500 at a site alongside Temple Meads. It grows an average of 780 kg per week of salad and herbs at its Whitchurch and Bradford-on-Avon sites to supply cafes and restaurants across the city. “We grew at around 40 per cent of turnover this year,” says Steve; “prospects post-Brexit are awesome. We are going from five acres to 35 to cope with it.”

Small brands

There is a whole layer of small and micro businesses across the city, Sam’s Jams, Aust-based Gourmet Dips, Zara’s Chocolates and Somerset Charcuterie to name a few.

The Wrington-based charcuterie was started two years ago by Andy Venn and James Simpson who both grew up in farming communities. Both had run food businesses for several years and could see an opportunity to develop a range of Spanish, French and Italian-inspired products to “capitalise on the rich food culture of the South West”.

Really looking forward to working with Marco Pierre White starting in a few weeks. Some amazing pigs, very excited! pic.twitter.com/Ly8KTTKQTn

— Somerset Charcuterie (@SomCharcuterie) July 15, 2016

They’re now regular fixtures at the region’s farmers’ markets – including the Tobacco Factory – and going through up to a tonne of pork a week. “We are committed to producing the best product with the best of Somerset ingredients wherever we can,” says Tom. “It has been a fantastic success story so far. We are looking forward to developing new and exciting products, meeting like-minded meat lovers and expanding our business further afield.” 

Supporting the city’s food producing community are organisations such as Bristol Food Producers, which is working to scale up local food production and build a sustainable supply chain, underpinned by Bristol’s Good Food Action Plan 2015-18. They say: “Increasing food production means increasing the number of diverse and viable small enterprises as well as helping existing business to grow sustainably and efficiently.”

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